Obama Finally Names Islamic State's 'Genocide' -
Now End It

WashingtonExaminer.com

For seven years, President Obama's administration
has done and said little that has been praiseworthy
when called on to protect religious freedom either
at home or abroad.

Obama dragged his feet for a year and a half before
even nominating an ambassador-at-large for
international religious freedom. More recently, the
State Department was months
late in delivering a report to Congress on
global human rights.

It is therefore encouraging that the State
Department on Thursday finally and officially
designated the atrocities perpetrated by Islamic
State against Christians and other religious
minorities in Syria and Iraq as "genocide," which
the Washington Examiner has been urging for months.More from the Washington Examiner

"…[I]n my judgment, Daesh (the Islamic State) is
responsible for genocide against groups in areas
under its control including Yazidis, Christians, and
Shia Muslims," Secretary of State John Kerry said in
his announcement on Thursday. "Daesh is genocidal by
self-proclamation, by ideology, and by its actions.
In what it says, what it believes, and what it does.
Daesh is also responsible for crimes against
humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same
groups and in some cases also Sunni Muslims, Kurds,
and other minorities."

The State Department's designation comes in the wake
of the House of Representatives unanimously passing
a resolution by Nebraska Rep. Jeff Fortenberry
demanding it.

We've documented the scope and severity of the
atrocities before. As we wrote last year,
"Christians in Islamic State-controlled Iraq and
Syria are being tortured, raped, kidnapped for
ransom, enslaved, beheaded and crucified. So many
Christians have fled that some experts warn that
Christianity could virtually disappear in the place
of its birth within a generation or two." A report
last week placed the estimated number of Christians
killed for their faith in IS-controlled areas at
1,100.

We called
on the Obama administration to make this
declaration three months ago. Better now than never.
But, the question is: What comes next? The
declaration must lead to action to improve the lives
of religious minorities living under constant
threat.

This is only the sixth time Washington has issued a
genocide designation. The last time, in response to
the Darfur genocide in Sudan in 2004, it was made
only after State Department lawyers determined that
employing the word wouldn't carry any legal
obligation to act. But even if such a designation
doesn't create a legal obligation to respond, it
does carry a moral one. It was this dilemma that
President Bill Clinton havered over in the mid-1990s
while Hutu tribesmen slaughtered hundreds of
thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda.Also from the Washington Examiner

State Department spokesman John Kirby told MSNBC
this Thursday that the practical effect of the
"genocide" designation would be intensified attacks
on the Islamic State and increased public awareness
of the atrocities. Kirby said the State Department
also wants to continue to gather evidence and
analyze it "to ensure that future victims and
suffering can be averted or at least documented for
history's sake."

Sec. Kerry has pledged that he will "strongly
support" an independent investigation into the
atrocities by a "competent court or tribunal." This
could be accomplished by the United National
Security Council or, given U.N. fecklessness, by an
ad hoc regional tribunal, the creation of which an
accompanying resolution called for on Monday.

"Naming these crimes is important," Kerry said in
announcing the genocide designation. "But what is
essential is to stop them." It took Kerry, Obama and
the United States too long to do the former. They
need to ensure they are not so tardy in
accomplishing the latter.